Dreaming nightmares

Running. My heart; a drumming soldier trying desperately to bash his way out of the cage. Don’t stop. Shadows slowly oppress the corners of my vision, creating a hazy image of myself stumbling, fighting to keep moving forward. A searing pain shoots up my left calf, causing me to scream. My voice is cut short; lungs gasping for air. I crumple to the ground. The last light leaving my vision. A swarm of darkness takes over. Motionless, heartbroken, nothing…

My beryl eyes heavily open. The throbbing pain from my calf vanishes in a matter of seconds. My feelings and senses all return to me. I turned my head to gaze; left, right, down. I am wearing ripped black jeans with my luminous orange jumper loosely upon me. I look back up to see I am in a corridor. Cobblestone walls covered in ivy, slowly crawling its way up the steep, uneven wall surrounding me. Instead of a roof, clouds of baby pink chase each other on a blue playing field. As I return my eyes back to the wall, I noticed scratch marks have been etched into it. I trace my shaking fingers along them, but brief contact with it makes parts of the wall crumble to grey ash-like dust. I stand back to get a better look, to then realise these aren't random scratchings, but words. ‘Mind maze’. I try to process the meanings behind them. Maze… How did I end up in a maze? I start heading right, my footsteps echoing. My breathing attempts to steady itself. A few paces forward and I hear a noise from behind me. I turn around, but nothing is there. Whisper, whisper, whisper. I start heading towards the noise; quicker and quicker. I reach the left corner and carefully peer around. It fills me with hope.

“It’s ok, sweetheart,” her honey sweet voice calls to me. I run towards my mom, a grin creeping across my face. Wearing her black and rose pink flowery top with ocean blue jeans; I  can smell her aromatic perfume from 4 metres away. Slowing down when I reach her, wary not to crash into her. She opens her arms wide for me to hug her, I oblige. Her fingers run through my soft blonde hair, finally embracing me. I hold her tight to me, thinking that as long as she is with me, nothing else would matter. She places her cheek next to mine and whispers breezily into my ear, “No matter what, I will always love you. I will forever be, in here.” She pulls away to place her hand on my beating heart. I lift my hand to place it on top of hers. I say, “Mom, I will always love you too, but you’re saying that as if you are going to…” I stop speaking. I realise that I can’t feel my hand on hers anymore. I look down to see that her hand has turned into air, but I could still see them. My own hands went straight through them. A hologram. I looked back up at my mom in complete shock. Her whole body was... just a hologram. I raised my arm to stroke her cheek but there was no solid cheek there. My shaking hand went through the hologram like a sharp knife through warm butter. I step back, the hologram was still, silent, staring into the distance. “Mom?”

I wave at her worriedly “Mom, whats happening? Mom answer me?!”

Immediately, the hologram of my beloved mother twirled, faced the opposite direction, and began to float away. I stand there awestruck. What was happening? What did I do? How is this possible? My nervous energy kicking in, I began to hurriedly jog after her.

Faster and faster, she floats away. I rush after her, steadily running out of breath. I dare not to stop in fear of losing her. The image of my mother turns her head to look at me, but still moving. Vibrant, glowing green mist slowly pours out of her mouth and surrounds her in a cloud of it as she speaks. “You call yourself my child, but you are nothing in reality. Just another worthless, pathetic child with no special qualities. Why would I want you?” a raspy voice says. I come to a halt. “You said you loved me!” I retorted. No response. The hologram has gone further into the maze. I am lost, frightened, confused and alone…

The next thing I knew, I was in a black abyss. All the negative feelings I have ever had piled on top of me, like chains of pure misery and weights of hatred and sadness, forbidding me to move. Suddenly, a pure white hole opened up in front of me. Light cascaded down upon me, like a waterfall. My eyes squint in the shock of light to look into the hole to see….him. He was just standing there in a aqua blue hoodie with ripped jeans. His devilishly cute smile was enough to warm my heart up in this cold...place. I called his name. Again and again. But he couldn’t see me. I was invisible to him. Desperate to gain his attention, I screamed at the top of my sore lungs. He finally turned. His smile disappeared. He glared at me with those sea green eyes. “I never really loved you. It was just a trick of the mind. How could I love you? You’re dumb; unstable; a freak; ugly; a no one. But I use you, because no matter what, you will always love me, you will never be free from my grasp. But I will never. Love. You.” My heart shatters into millions of unfixable pieces. I’m confused, scared that I’ll lose him forever. He is my life, my world, my perfection. I collapse to the floor. Lungs tightened so much I’m drowning in my own clouded tears. How could this happen!? What did I do wrong? I watch him as he walks over to another girl and kisses her passionately. The hole begins to close. I scream with my remaining strength to him. I scream at her to get of him. But my screams have no response. The pure light slowly fading, fading, fading. Then… nothing.

I wake up squinting to see in I’m an uncomfortable hospital bed. I rub my eyes to find crimson blood tears covering my pale hands. My calf flares up in pain. I lift my aching neck up look to my leg but instead I see a file with my name on it. I weakly pick it up. Under my name, it says ‘Suffers from self harm, depression, anxiety, hallucinations and heartache’.

Was it all a nightmare? Or just reality in a dream?

Author's Note

Any feedback is welcome :)

Reviews

[Reds]

I absolutely love this, the way you use a variation of sentence structure to show time passing. At the start very punchy sentences stating facts. Then it merged into the longer paragraph that is then realisation and coming to terms. We then see it become very drawn out as if 'she' does not want her time with her mum to end. And then the self realisation that I personally feel was not needed and the cléche ending slightly deducted from the experience. However I found the piece very enjoyable to read and cannot wait for more! x